Ensign Emilia L Chaser
by MegolasPendragon
Summary: Adventure aboard the Enterprise as told by a new recruit-Emilia Chaser. She idolizes Jim Kirk and joining Starfleet has been her dream for as long as she can remember...but life on the Enterprise can be fairly terrifying and adventure isn't as easy as it looks, as she soon finds out. I don't own Star Trek or any of the characters except my OC.
1. Smooth Sailing

The quiet hum of the engines of the USS Enterprise at warp was like a lullaby, calming the fears felt at the overwhelming blackness of deep space. It had only been a few weeks since this year's Starfleet Academy Graduation but already the newly fledged officers were aboard the Enterprise, joining the current five year mission to chart new and unexplored territories of space. Most were working down in engineering under the watchful eye of Chief Engineer Scott or helping out in Sickbay, to the annoyance of Doctor McCoy who much preferred his role as a 'Doctor, dammit, not a babysitter!'. Only a handful of new recruits were from the Command track and of these few, only one was currently working on the Bridge itself. The actual Bridge of the Enterprise. Ensign Emilia L. Chaser knew what an honour this was and still was finding it hard to bring herself to believe it. Nine days. Eight alpha shifts. One beta shift. That's how long she'd been aboard, working on the port side of the Bridge, under the watchful eye of Mr Sulu, in control of the tertiary thrusters on the left of the ship. A small job, she would admit that, but Emilia would have gladly taken a job cleaning the space toilets if it would get her on the Enterprise.

A quiet 'whoosh' that signalled the arrival of the turbolift brought her back to reality followed by the enthusiastic and adoring announcement of,

'Keptin on ze Bridge!' by Mr Chekov (who Emilia most certainly did not have a crush on, thank you very much) as the one and only Captain James T. Kirk strolled onto the Bridge, nodded once at his command team, once at Commander Spock and then slid gracefully into the Captain's chair.

'Mr Spock, how's our ship?' he asked once he'd taken his place. Emilia still couldn't believe this was the Captain she had read about for four years of Academy training. James T. Kirk was the whole reason she'd started referring to herself as Emilia 'L.' Chaser.

'All systems are functioning normally and the crew are performing admirably, Captain,' Spock dutifully answered. Jim nodded and smiled to himself, content and happy. This was where he belonged, flying among the stars, exploring the entire universe that lay before him. Just then Chekov's voice broke through the steady hum of the Enterprise,

'I haff reduced readings showing for ze warp accelerator, Keptin'

Jim frowned,

'Can you isolate the source?'

'I haff tried ,Keptin, but zhere is no obwious reason zhat I can currently see'

Jim opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by Lieutenant Uhura,

'Captain, I'm picking up a signal of some sort, I think it might be a distress call. It's not in any language I know, although it seems to have some similarities to Romulan.'

'Try and make out what you can, Lieutenant,' the Captain said as his communicator buzzed. Jim flipped it open, saw that the signal was coming from Engineering and gave his signature greeting,

'Kirk here.' White noise crashed through the speaker making both Jim and Spock cringe at the harsh static. Jim frowned and tried again,

'Kirk to Engineering, Scotty is that you?' More static. Emilia glanced up at her Captain, concerned. This was the first instance of something not running smoothly since she had been here and, even though it was probably nothing, it still made a jolt of fear run through her. She caught the eye of Ensign Chekov as she turned back to her station and promptly felt her ears burning bright red as she momentarily forgot her previous fear. A voice broke through the static of the communicator, the Scottish lilt of the Chief Engineer coming through in pieces.

'Jim, there.…warp…..align…I can…..'

Jim snapped his communicator shut with a flick of his wrist as he stood and strode towards the turbolift.

'Mr Spock, you have the conn,' he threw over his shoulder as he exited. Emilia took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Her Captain would deal with this, she was sure. She checked the bearing of the ship and adjusted the thrusters minutely. An altogether unnecessary adjustment since the course was out by a fraction of a fraction and the tertiary thrusters really made very little difference, but she wasn't taking any chances. Soon after, Commander Spock's communicator buzzed and Jim's voice sounded as soon as he opened it.

'Get us out of warp now!' The Bridge crew acted quickly, never stopping to question their Captain. Sulu pulled on the warp lever and it landed heavily on the console. At the same time Chekov gave full power on the forward thrusters to minimise the effects of the sudden loss of speed that would occur with the drop out of warp however the Enterprise did not slow. Despite the drive apparently being deactivated, the ship continued to hurtle through the stars at a blistering pace.

'Commander, there appears to be a problem with the warp drive, we can't drop out of warp,' Sulu reported, tapping swiftly on his console.

'Captain, we cannot drop out of warp,' Spock said into his communicator. After a long silence, the only answer received was a loud explosion from the Engineering deck that shoved the Enterprise harshly to the left, spinning her out of warp which caused her to become even more unstable. The crew on the Bridge were all thrown violently around as their ship lost control and Spock lost his footing on the smooth surface of the Bridge floor.

'What in the hell is going on!?' came McCoy's voice from Medical through the Bridge's main comm. Emilia slammed her hand down on her console, turning the left thrusters on full to try and counteract the spiralling as Sulu fought to stabilise the ship. Chekov reduced the forward thrusters while fighting to stay in his seat and turned on the red alert, causing the lights to start flashing and a siren to sound, alerting the rest of the crew to the danger. Spock called out over the chaos,

'Is the damage internal or external?'

The reply was cut off as another explosion rocked the ship and Emilia was tipped out of her seat.

'Internal, Commander!' Chekov shouted, just as he was thrown from his chair,

'Engineering Deck 4!' He cried out in pain when his head collided with the edge of his desk, causing a thin trail of blood to slide from his hairline.

Emilia looked up from the floor at everything going on around her. All the reports were true, life on the Enterprise really was never boring…although she wasn't sure this was the kind of excitement she was looking for.


	2. Hide And Seek

The ship was still tilting dangerously. Sulu hurriedly strapped himself down to his seat and any crew members who had managed to remain in their chairs did the same. As the ship finally started to become under control, Sulu glanced over and saw that his Russian friend was currently out of action. He turned to Emilia, who had managed to crawl her way back into her seat,

'Get a location on the blast.'

'Aye, Mr Sulu'. Emilia turned back to her console and began to search Engineering Deck 4. Within a couple of minutes she had a vague idea of where the explosion had initiated and she figured she didn't need an exact location since the site of the blast would be fairly hard to miss once you were in the area. She turned toward the Captain's chair.

'Commander Spock, I have a location of the epicentre of the explosion'. Spock glanced at her, then flipped open his communicator,

'Bridge to Engineering, what is your status?' Only static could be heard. Looking back at Emilia, Spock formulated his plan. He turned to a security officer in a red shirt,

'Mr Turner, you will accompany me to the Engineering Deck.'

Turner nodded and advanced towards the turbolift as Spock continued giving his orders,

'Uhura, continue attempts to contact Engineering. You, Ensign..?'

'Emilia Chaser, Sir'

'Ensign Chaser, take me to the blast site. Mr Sulu, you have the conn'

Emilia stood immediately, grabbed her PADD and followed the First Officer to the turbolift. She took a deep breath. This wasn't like the scenarios set up by the Academy for training, this was real. There were actual people's lives in danger. James T. Kirk's life could be in danger.

When the doors of the lift slid open, a choking fog of smoke enveloped Emilia and Spock. Immediately the two of them started coughing and Emilia's eyes burned and watered. They covered their noses and mouths with their sleeves as well as they could and advanced into the cloud. Spock drew his phaser, set to stun, just to be safe. They didn't know what had caused the blast after all. Slowly through the decreased visibility, they headed towards the location Emilia had identified, using her PADD to navigate. When they reached Deck 4, it was clear to see what had caused the explosion. Flames licked around the right side of the warp core and the cooling system on that side had been completely obliterated, leaving a blackened crater. Emilia felt sick when she saw a dozen bodies of the Engineering crew around the site and silently prayed one of them wasn't the Captain she had idolised for her whole Starfleet career. She looked over at Spock and could practically see his brain working as he took in the scene. He took a phaser from a nearby desk and gave it to Emilia, then gave a signal with his hand that she should circle the core to the left and he would go round the right whilst Turner would check intruders in the lower levels. Emilia nodded. The phaser felt too heavy and clumsy in her hands and she thought for sure her legs were visibly shaking. As Spock disappeared round one side of the warp core, Emilia thought of how easy it would be just to stay here and wait until he found something or came back. She found her traitorous mind telling her that joining Starfleet may not have been the best idea. She shook he thought away, angry at herself for even thinking it. Now was the time to prove herself. She was a Starfleet Officer. She could do this.

Jim wiped the ash from his eyes for the millionth time and coughed until he was sure he'd lose a lung. Now Jim Kirk was not claustrophobic, but the space under the console that he was currently trapped in was a little small for his liking. Now it was getting even worse as the thick black smoke had managed to worm its way into his air space. He had no idea where Scotty was and his communicator had been smashed beyond repair so he couldn't even contact the Bridge. He tried again to shift whatever metal thing was blocking his escape but it stayed stubbornly where it was. He had only crawled under here to try and manually disable the warp core. He probably shouldn't have, since Scotty had already warned him it was unstable but he was never one to back down from a challenge. Then Scotty had disappeared off mumbling something about polarity to himself and one of the cooling systems had exploded above Jim. Now he wasn't sure how anybody could find him. He coughed again and heard something smash outside. His makeshift roof groaned dangerously. He searched his prison, trying desperately to find a way out and found a fairly smashed up communicator lying near him. Even though he knew it wouldn't work, he still opened it and tried to contact the Bridge. Nothing. He eventually settled for bracing his feet against a wall of debris and pushing as hard as he could. After a few minutes in vain, he let out a shout of frustration when it refused to budge.

'Captain? Captain Kirk?' Emilia kept asking the empty deck with a small and shaking voice, hoping with everything she had that there would be an answer. She was sure she wasn't qualified for this. Her communicator buzzed,

'Ensign Chaser, this is Lieutenant Uhura, your surroundings are unstable, you need to get out of there.' Emilia's heart thumped in her chest. _What if she was caught in another explosion? What if the warp core malfunctioned without its cooling system fully functioning?_

'Ensign Chaser, do you receive me?'

Emilia found her voice,

'Yes, I receive you.' _But what if the Captain was alive? Injured or trapped but still alive and alone? Can I really leave him down here to die?_

Then Emilia had a thought that made up her mind for her: _What would James T. Kirk do?_

With her heart beating fast and everything she had going into telling herself this was the right thing to do, she opened her communicator,

'Ensign Chaser to the Bridge, I am aware of the dangers but I need to carry on looking for him. It's what he would do.'

'Ensign, this is Sulu.' Emilia waited for the order to return she was sure was coming,

'I'm sending a team down to help you. Bring our Captain home.'

This announcement was met by a clamour from the Bridge of various voices consisting of a mixture of,

'How could you put an Ensign's life in danger?!' and,

'That's the right thing to do, Sulu.' But all the commotion on the Bridge was not Emilia's concern. She nodded and smiled, even though Sulu couldn't see either action,

'Aye, Mr Sulu.'


	3. Missing In Action

Commander Spock rounded yet another corner in the seemingly endless maze that was the Engineering deck but there was still no sign of Kirk anywhere. His Vulcan half was starting to tell him it wasn't logical to keep looking, that he would have found him by now if he was going to find him at all. Spock, however, chose on this occasion to listen to his human half, which stubbornly remained hopeful that the Captain and Mr Scott would be found safe and unharmed, despite the odds of the situation. He held his phaser steady ahead of him, ready for any undesirable that might come out of the shadows ahead of him. Spock went over in his mind what they knew about the situation so far:

The explosion was internal

It blew up a cooling system and damaged the warp core

Mr Scott is missing

Captain Kirk is missing

Spock sighed slightly, it really wasn't much to go on. All those details told him was that either the Enterprise herself malfunctioned, or someone beamed aboard undetected and sabotaged her from the inside. It didn't seem likely that a fault this serious would go unnoticed by Scotty, who loved the Enterprise like she was his own blood. Unfortunately, that meant that the logical assumption to make was that there was an intruder aboard who somehow managed to gain access to the ship's computer without any kind of identification.

Something metallic behind him clattered the floor, causing him to spin round and scan the area for any other living thing. Despite the alarms blaring around him, everything went strangely quiet as his pointed ears strained to hear anything. A cough, somewhere off to the left, caught his attention. He walked carefully and silently round the next corner, keeping his phaser aimed dead ahead. As he rounded the corner, he could just about see one of the engineering crew through the thick smoke, lying flat on the floor next to a pile of rubble. Deciding that this red shirt was most likely harmless, Spock holstered his phaser and went to check on him. He rested two fingers on the red shirt's wrist and found a shallow but steady heartbeat. All this smoke was not good for human respiratory systems however so Spock knew he had to get this crewmember to safety. He had just formulated his plan of action in his head when he froze at the feeling of cool steel through his blue shirt between his shoulder blades.

Emilia cursed her the sudden burst of bravery that had somehow possessed her to say she'd keep looking. Or maybe it was stupidity, she couldn't quite decide. There was one thing she knew though, she wasn't going to return to the bridge without Captain Kirk and Mr Scott but burning of the smoke in her lungs was intensifying and she knew she wouldn't be able to keep up the search much longer. She had taken to crawling along the floor, since she remembered someone once telling her to keep low to avoid the worst of the smoke- one of those lessons you never think you'll need, until you do.

She stopped to listen for the support team again but there was no sign of them. They should have been here by now. For now, she was on her own,

'Mr Scott?' she called, for what felt like the millionth time,

'Captain Kirk?'

As she crawled past a pile of twisted meal, she glanced up and saw a PADD with a broken screen sticking out of the pile. Carefully, she pulled it free, pressed some buttons and the display flashed up: PROPERTY OF JAMES T. KIRK. Emilia felt like crying. She looked back at the pile of metal that had melted and burned. She didn't believe in any higher powers, but right then she prayed to every God she had ever heard of that James T. Kirk was not under all that. She called out to him again, quieter now as if she was afraid she would miss any answer that came. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be the Kirk in his chair staring at the universe, his crew all around him, the engine running smoothly and Emilia in the middle of it all, finally having the adventures she had always dreamed of having. It was looking now like those dreams might never be realised.

The support crew that Sulu had promised were still not here and Emilia was beginning to think that maybe they weren't coming at all. She opened her communicator and hailed the Bridge,

'Ensign Chaser to the Bridge.'

'Uhura here, what is it?'

'The support crew aren't here'

'I sent them as soon as we finished speaking, they should have arrived. I'll find out what's happened. Is there any sign of Kirk or Scotty?' Emilia felt awful to have to be the bearer of bad news,

'No Lieutenant, I'm afraid not. I've found the Captain's PADD, but there's no sign of the actual Captain.'

'Just…keep looking, I know you're doing your best.'

And just like that, Emilia was alone again. She blinked back tears and finally conceded that she really couldn't do this all by herself. Turning back and heading for the turbolift, she looked at the pile of rubble where she had found the Captain's PADD,

'I'm sorry, Captain, please forgive me'.

Then she was hit with a heavy round of loud coughs that left her even more breathless than she had already been. As she started back, she heard a bang behind her that echoed seemed to echo slightly. Confused, she stopped her retreat and looked behind her. There was another bang. She had just about dismissed the noises as the rubble settling when she heard a shout, faint and croaky. Filled with a rush of adrenaline, Emilia abandoned her crawling and ran over to where the shout had come from. It was the pile of metal she had just apologised to.

'Captain!', she shouted, louder than she had before,

'Captain, is that you?'

She almost burst into song when she heard his faint reply,

'It's me, it's Jim!'


	4. Hostage Situation

Spock's Vulcan logic side of his brain went into overdrive as he tried to figure out who's weapon was currently pointing where he wished it wasn't-at his currently unprotected back. A cool voice spoke slowly like ice down his spine,

'Where is the Captain of this Starship?' it demanded. Spock turned his head over his shoulder, trying to put a face to the voice.

'Eyes front!' the weapon pressed harder into his spine,

'Where. Is. The. Captain?'

'I am unaware of his current location.' Spock stated truthfully, 'We have suffered damage on this deck and so have no way to lock onto any signal.'

'Then find a way! Contact the Bridge. Do not give me any reason to kill you.' Spock cursed that he had put his phaser away. Deciding on his most logical course of action, Spock took his communicator from his pocket and contacted the bridge,

'Spock to Bridge.' The crackly voice of Sulu came through in reply,

'This is Sulu, what is your current location, Mr Spock?' Spock had just opened his mouth to answer when the weapon disappeared from his back and instead came up to meet the back of his head. Hard. Spock fell to his knees with starry eyes and the last thought he had before he succumbed to the blackness was how he could have missed this entirely logical outcome to his situation.

'Hello, Mr Sulu. I think it's time we played a little game.' There was a deathly silence from the Bridge as the situation sunk in until it was broken by Sulu with his 'Captain voice' as Jim liked to call it,

'Tell me who you are and what you have done with our Commander, I will not ask twice. Your exact location is already known to us and I will not hesitate to send a squad of armed officers with an order to shoot on sight.' Spock's attacker let out a low mocking laugh,

'You have big words, Mr Sulu, but you forget-what happened to the last squad of officers you sent down to this deck? If I recall, they never quite made their destination. Besides, I already know you don't know my location. Your Commander informed me of that. What do you say we come to some kind of agreement? You find Captain Kirk, give him to me and I'll give you back your Commander.'

'We don't negotiate with intruders who threaten our ship and crew,' Sulu stated firmly.

'Then I suggest you say goodbye to your Commander.' The line cut out.

'It's me, it's Jim!'

Filled with a new rush of adrenaline upon hearing her Captain's voice, Emilia turned and headed back towards the rubble and started looking for any place she might be able to dismantle the pile without bringing the whole thing down on him. As she desperately searched with her stinging eyes, her communicator buzzed again. She flipped it open but before she could even say anything, a thickly accented and fairly frantic voice came through,

'Emilia! Zhere is an intruder on ze deck! He has ze Commander!' Emilia froze and started to feel hot and cold at the same time as she felt panic settling in,

'I…I…the Captain is…' She found she couldn't even speak enough to tell Chekov she had found Kirk.

'Lost, I know, but it is not safe down zhere.'

'No! No!', Emilia found her voice but it was a second too late as her communicator cut out,

'Damn it,' she said to herself, pressing buttons and shaking the device a few times in a futile attempt to fix it. Giving up on her technology, she decided to focus her efforts on something worthwhile-getting to Kirk. Pushing down the twinge of fear that seemed to be now permanently residing in her, she looked around again until her eyes settled on a thin metal pole. Reaching over, she found she could easily lift it and manoeuvred it under a piece of debris in the pile to act as a lever, since there was no way she could lift the debris itself,

'Captain? I'm going to move some of this metal and try and make an exit for you,' she called. At first, the only response she got was a string of coughs followed by some rather colourful language but then she heard,

'OK, I'm ready.' With a deep breath and all the strength she could find, she pushed down on her makeshift lever and grinned to herself when the debris started to move. Just a little more and there would be a gap big enough for a Kirk-sized human to get through. Just then, the Enterprise lurched to one side again and Emilia lost her grip on the debris. She hit the floor just as she heard the metal shift and Kirk cry out in pain.

'Captain? Are you alright?', She asked as she picked herself up, almost dreading the answer.

'Um, yep, yeah I'm..fine-ish. Just a flesh wound', came a muffled and strained reply. Emilia let out a deep breath. She couldn't believe she had just dropped a pile of metal on her Captain.

Jim was trying very hard not to look at his left leg, which currently had a rather large piece of metal stuck in it. He had emergency medical training, so he knew he needed to get it out because it certainly wasn't sterile and infection was a real possibility, but he was prioritising remembering how to breathe right now instead. He didn't know why his ship was tilting like it was but he hoped the Bridge crew had it under control. He saw the pile above him shift a little and assumed his anonymous rescuer was trying again to dig him out. Based on the voice, he guessed it was a girl and quite a young one too. Forcing himself to sit up and look at his leg, he could see it wasn't bleeding too much-the debris should theoretically act like a plug and stop massive blood loss. Unfortunately that didn't stop it hurting like hell.

'Bones is going to kill me,' he said.

'Is it that bad?' he heard his rescuer ask. He didn't realise he'd spoken so loud,

'Not bad enough to kill me before Bones does!' he joked, trying to make light of the situation,

'Who are you, by the way?'

'Oh, I'm Ensign Chaser, Sir.' Jim could vaguely remember reading the file of a 'Chaser'.

'OK, Ensign Chaser, what do you say we get out of here?'

'Sounds like a good plan, Sir, I'll try again and let's hope the ship holds steady.' Jim looked back at his leg with the growing puddle of blood beneath it and made sure his voice was quiet enough that Ensign Chaser didn't hear him as he said,

'I damn well hope it does.'


	5. Beware The Lokthan

Doctor McCoy arrived on the Bridge, storming through the turbolift doors and stopping just in front of the Captain's chair that Sulu was currently occupying,

'What the hell is going on?', he demanded,

'I leave this deck for two minutes and Jim's gone, Spock's gone, the ship is exploding around us and all my equipment is flying round Medbay!'

'We were being hailed by an unknown ship and then the warp drive malfunctioned,' Sulu said, trying to sound calm,

'The Captain went down to investigate then something exploded and-'

'Ze cooling system exploded', interjected a Russian voice. Sulu glanced briefly at Chekov,

'OK, the cooling system exploded. There's an Ensign down there looking for Kirk but the support team we sent has vanished, Spock's been captured by an unknown intruder and we don't know where Scotty is,' Sulu finished. Bones looked at him incredulously, trying to process what he'd just heard. His shocked silence was interrupted by the same Russian voice,

'Excuse me Doctor McCoy, may I have your assistance?' Bones, looked over at the Navigator and saw him take his hand from the side of his head, covered in sticky blood,

'My God, kid, what did you do?!' he said, moving quickly to him,

'I fell out my chair and hit my head on ze console,' Chekov answered.

'Why are you still at your station?' Chekov shrugged,

'This is an emergency.' Bones shook his head,

'You've been spending too much time with Jim.' He took out his tricorder and waved it over the navigator,

'Well you've got a mild concussion and a nasty gash on your head, but it's not serious. I'll just bandage it for now but you'll need to come down to Medbay when this is all over.' Chekov nodded, then went back to his work, tapping on his station and trying to re-establish the signals from the engineering deck. Bones rolled his eyes and got to work flattening his curls down to his head with a thick white bandage.

'Sulu, I've managed to roughly translate the signal we got using syntax and vocabulary patterns from various dialects of Romulan. They say they are a race called the Lokthan,' said Uhura.

'Do they give any information on why they have attacked the Enterprise?' Sulu asked.

'They want the Captain, they don't say why,' she replied. Bones sighed a long suffering sigh. Trust Jim Kirk to make an enemy that nobody had even ever heard of before. He shook his head and got back to first aid work on Chekov and the other crewmembers who'd been tossed about by the Enterprise.

Jim felt his vision waver and was starting to feel lightheaded. Whether it was from the blood loss or the smoke inhalation, he didn't know. There was a gap forming in the wall of his makeshift prison that was slowly widening as his rescuer levered the debris away. He reckoned he could probably get through the gap now, and told as much to Ensign Chaser.

'Aye, Sir, I'll hold it here,' she replied. Jim took a deep breath-he knew this was hurt. Using his arms and his right leg, he shuffled across to the gap and through it, gritting his teeth at the pain of jostling his damaged leg. As he reached the outside of the pile of metal, he saw that the smoke from the cooling system was beginning to dissipate. At least that was some small victory, he supposed. Glancing round, he caught his first look at his rescuer-Ensign Chaser. Her gold dress was blackened and her hair was covered in soot but he could see it would usually be a coppery-red sort of colour. What struck him most was how young she looked. She discarded her makeshift lever and turned to face him, her eyes widening when she saw his leg,

'Captain, are you Ok? That leg looks painful, I'm so sorry I dropped the lever but the ship moved and I lost my hold and-' Jim put up a hand to stop her babbling,

'Its fine, Ensign, you just saved my life so I'll forgive you for this,' he said, waving his hand vaguely at his leg,

'Has anyone located Scotty?' he asked. Emilia cast her eyes down, not wanting to deliver the bad news to her Captain that his chief engineer was still currently missing. Jim sighed,

'I guess that's a no then.'

'Yes, Sir,' Emilia said quietly. Jim looked around them, half expecting to see a rescue team and maybe at least one of his senior crew members from the Bridge, but they were alone.

'Um, are you on your own?' he asked, confused. He saw Ensign Chaser suddenly look even more worried, if that were possible, as if he'd reminded her of something awful,

'Commander Spock was here, Sir, but he's been…taken,' she said quietly. Jim frowned,

'What do you mean 'taken'?'

'I don't know exactly…Mr Chekov just told me there was an intruder and that they had the Commander. My communicator cut out after that.'

'Ok, let's just…get out of here and-'

'There was a support team too,' Emilia said suddenly, interrupting Jim,

'But I don't know where they are either, they never turned up.' Jim was silent for a moment as he processed this new information. Emilia didn't quite know what to do at this point so she just stood and waited.

'OK,' Jim's voice cut through the silence,

'So there's a possibility there's more than one intruder on board. We need to get to the turbolift and the Bridge.' Emilia jumped into action helping Kirk to his feet, grateful that she now had orders to follow,

'Aye, Captain.'

Spock awoke with a start. He winced involuntarily at the dull throbbing in his head, blinked his eyes and tried to focus his mind. He reached up and felt the back of his head, wincing again when he felt a large lump and the unmistakable stickiness of blood. Pulling himself upright and glancing around, he could see he was in a large room made of dull, grey metal. He raised an eyebrow when he saw the familiar black lettering of 'NCC-1701' on one of the walls-he was still on the Enterprise, which probably meant that this intruder did not have access to any kind of transporter technology since it isn't usually that case that the hostage is left on their own ship. However that did raise the question of how the intruder actually got on the ship in the first place. Spock felt for his communicator in the dim light, knowing he probably wouldn't find it but still reasoning it would be illogical not to check if it was there. Spock heard a shuffling noise from the other end of his makeshift prison, which was covered in shadow. Spock cleared his throat,

'Who is there?' he asked the darkness. A familiar voice answered him,

'Commander? Is that you?'

'Yes, this is Commander Spock,' the Vulcan answered. Out of the shadows came a figure in a red shirt. Spock felt some tension loosen off his shoulders,

'Mr Scott, we've been looking for you.'


	6. Mutiny

'This is ridiculous, we can't just sit up here and leave them! We have to do something!', Uhura exclaimed.

'We can't send anyone down, the last team disappeared and we haven't had contact since, it's too dangerous'

'The Captain is down there, alone!'

'He's not alone'

'That girl is an ensign who's been aboard, what, a week? He's as good as alone.'

'She's still a Starfleet Officer and she-

'I've got it!' Chekov shouted suddenly, bouncing up from his chair and interrupting the brief argument. A display flashed up on the glass window of the Bridge, showing a blueprint of the engineering deck and two blue dots,

'I've locked on to two lifeform signals on engineering deck 4, heading to ze turbolift!'

'That's got to be the Captain and that Ensign,' Sulu said, keeping his eyes on the blue dots,

'At least we know they're alive.' Chekov was still bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet studying the display on the screen with the rest of the Bridge crew. Bones put a hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back down to sit in his seat,

'Can you get readings on them?' he asked. Chekov nodded enthusiastically,

'I should be able to, Sir.' A few seconds later, two profiles flashed up showing vitals for a 'KIRK, JAMES T.' and 'CHASER, EMILIA L.'. Bones stared hard at them, his practiced eyes taking in everything he saw, noting the increased heart rates and adrenaline levels of both of them, as well as the effects of smoke inhalation showing. His eyes were drawn to the alert on Jim's profile. Blood loss. Great.

'Can we contact them?' Sulu said. Uhura spun around to her console,

'Only if they've still got hold of their communicators,' she said. After a moment, she let out an exasperated sigh,

'It doesn't look like either of them have their communicators or their PADD.' She turned to look expectantly at Sulu, as the acting Captain. Sulu drummed his fingers on the arms of the Captain's chair,

'There's got to be a way to get a message to them, at least let them know we've located them, even if they can't reply.'

'They're heading towards the turbolift', Uhura said,

'There's a screen by the door, we could-'

'We could use zat to deliver a message to ze Keptin!' Chekov interrupted, bouncing excitedly again. Uhura just nodded, used to the ways of Pavel Chekov by now.

'Can we hack into our own system to write something on the screen?' Sulu asked,

'That device isn't programmed for text, it's restricted to colours and images,' Uhura replied.

'Is there a way to communicate without words?' Bones asked, sure that his blood pressure was rising by the minute with worry over Jim. Uhura thought for a moment,

'Yes, I believe there is.'

Jim stumbled slightly, every movement sending shooting pain up his leg. For the sake of the Ensign, he was trying not to let the pain show.

'We're almost there, Captain, just a bit further,' Emilia said, adjusting her grip on him. The smoke had, thankfully, almost completely dissipated but Emilia could still feel the strange sensation in her lungs that she wasn't quite drawing in as much oxygen as usual and she was sure the Captain could feel it too. As they rounded a corner, Emilia almost cried in relief when she caught sight of curved steel of the turbolift doors. Jim tried to think of something to say but his brain felt confused and not quite put together properly. They reached the doors and Jim collapsed against them, his weight taking Emilia with him. She staggered upright and across to the screen next to the doors, intending to get them open. As she reached it she frowned. The screen was flashing with blue light intermittently. She turned to her Captain,

'Um, Captain, should it be doing that?' Jim looked over at the screen and frowned,

'Not usually, no,' he said. He stared at the flashing lights, his thoughts fighting their way past the fogginess. There was something about that rhythm, something important, something…

'Morse! It's Morse Code!' he remembered suddenly,

'Can you understand it?' he asked Emilia, noticing an unsettling nausea in the pit of his stomach which was only being made worse by the flashing lights. To his relief, she nodded,

'It's standard Starfleet training, Sir.' Jim nodded and looked away from the screen,

'Of course.' He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the turbolift doors.

'Commander, am I glad to see you!' Scotty said, drawing Spock into a hug that the Vulcan did not return,

'I too am glad to see you safe and well, Mr Scott', Spock replied,

'Have you any information on our kidnappers?' Scotty's face fell,

'They're powerful…transporter technology like nothing even I've ever seen before!' Spock raise a pointed eyebrow,

'Transporter technology? It was logical to assume that they did not have access to such technology, due to our current location, still onboard the Enterprise.' Scotty shook his head,

'The reason we're still here is because they want us here. They don't want us separated from the rest of the Enterprise, they've separated the rest of the Enterprise from us.'

'I fail to see your meaning'

'That transporter tech I saw… they've taken all of the crew. Just beamed them out all at once like it was nothing!'

'We are alone on the Enterprise with the intruders?' Spock asked. Scotty shrugged and sighed,

'I don't know. All I heard was that the crew had been removed and the ship was theirs.'

'Lieutenant Uhura, report,' Sulu said,

'The malfunction is working, the screen should be flashing,' Uhura answered. Sulu turned back towards the front, catching sight of the tension in the Chief Medical Officer's stance,

'Jim will be alright, Bones,' he said, only half believing it himself,

'The vitals are holding steady and they've not been joined by any unwanted guests.' Bones huffed,

'Yet. That damn kid's got more lives than a cat, I just hope he hasn't used 'em all. They've definitely seen something anyway,' he said, nodding at the blue dots on the display that were hovering by the turbolift doors,

'I just hope they've got enough wits about 'em to realise it's Morse Code.'

'Umm…Mr Sulu?' came a quiet Russian voice. Sulu frowned, it wasn't like Chekov to be anything like quiet,

'Yes, Mr Chekov?'

'The rest of the crew, they're…they're…'

'Spit it out, kid, time's wasting,' Bones said,

'They're…gone, Sir.'

'What do you mean, gone? Gone where?' Sulu said.

'I don't know! The signals have all just...disappeared!' Chekov replied, his accent becoming thicker and harder to understand as he became more frantic.

'Is it possible the signals are just being blocked?' Sulu asked, desperately hoping he was right.

'No Sir, we wouldn't be able to see Emilia and ze Keptin if zhat happened!' Bones rubbed his temples,

'Well that's just great.'


	7. Extraction

'O…N…S…C…R…E…E…N…onscreen? What does that mean?' Emilia said, half to herself, as she squinted at the flashing console.

'Is that all it says?' Jim rasped, bracing himself upright with a hand on the wall, doing his best not to stare at the flashing lights because he was pretty sure he might throw up.

'Yeah, just 'onscreen'.

'Alright, so are they telling us something about the screen?'

'Maybe….or…wait, maybe they mean we're onscreen? As in, they can see us?'

'Yes! Of course! They're telling us they can see us! They'll be working on getting us help, for sure' Jim exclaimed, pushing up from the wall as adrenaline shot through him. Emilia felt a rush of hope, there was a possibility help would come soon. They knew where they were, so they knew where to send help.

'Let's get into the turbolift, there's extractor fans to get rid of the smoke,' Jim said, slipping into his 'Captain' voice. Emilia nodded and jumped to follow his orders, turning and pressing the console on the wall. Nothing happened. When the same thing happened again, she tried a manual override on the door mechanism. She thought it had worked when the display read that the door was unlocked but there was then a spark and a small puff of smoke that showed otherwise. She looked at her Captain for guidance and could almost see the despair growing in his eyes. He limped over and began pressing keys on the console. After a few unsuccessful minutes, and some more smoke, he let out a noise of frustration and slid down the wall to sit. Unsure of what was proper behaviour in this situation, Emilia nervously lowered herself to sit next to him.

They sat in silence for a few long moments as Emilia tried to think of any training she had that could help in this situation. Back at the Academy, if she'd been unsure of what to do next, she would always ask herself: _What would Captain Kirk do?_ Unfortunately now that question didn't seem to be particularly valid because she could see right in front of her what Captain Kirk would do. Still she thought it, perhaps out of reflex, or perhaps because it was the only thing she could think to do right now.

A cough drew her attention and her head snapped over to look at Kirk. He suddenly looked very small, collapsed against the wall and veiled in smoke and she realised then that this maybe wasn't Captain Kirk- in this brief moment of despair, this was just Jim Kirk. Injured and dirty and trapped with only an Ensign for company. She realised now how young the Captain of the Enterprise really was. Looking at him now, she could hardly believe there had been time in his short life for all the dramatic events she had read about.

She let her eyes wander across the deck, shapes and colours fuzzy in the smoke. Then she spotted a vaguely red square on the wall a few metres away- an emergency hatch. They usually had fire extinguishers, phasers and…communicators. Emilia's heart skipped a beat-had she actually found the answer? She jumped up from the floor, startling Kirk with her sudden movements. She made her way over to the hatch and it was then she realised the flaw in her plan-the hatch was only unlocked when the red alert sounded.

'Captain, do you think you could override the locking mechanism on this emergency hatch?' Emilia asked, hoping there was a quick fix to this setback.

'I'm going to with yes, but I can't get to it myself,' Jim said, sounding slightly strained,

'Oh yeah, right,' Emilia said, rushing over to his side. Wishing the Captain wasn't heavier than he looked, Emilia somehow managed to get him over to open the hatch. Thanking every God in the Universe, Emilia located the standard emergency communicator and wordlessly offered it to Jim, almost singing at the look of admiration on her Captain's face. He took it, flipping it open,

'Captain to the Bridge'. After a few moments, Chekov's voice crackled through the speaker,

'Keptin! You are alive!' he announced brightly, causing Emilia to let out a quiet laugh and shake her head. Jim glanced at her and smiled tiredly,

'Yes I am, Mr Chekov, you can't get rid of me that easily. The doors on the-' before he could finish, he was hit by a vicious bout of coughs. He almost bent double trying to control the quakes that rattled his whole body. He waved the communicator, filled with the concerned babbling of Chekov, at Emilia.

'Mr Chekov? This is Ensign Chaser, the turbolift doors are stuck, we can't get out of here and the whole of engineering is filling with smoke.'

'Hold on, Emilia-um I mean Miss Chaser-I can fix zat,' Chekov said, stumbling over her name. The use of her first name took Emilia by surprise, she wasn't properly sure he knew she existed. She glanced down at Jim's face, black with ash, hoping he hadn't noticed. He wiggled his eyebrows at her and grinned, despite the breathing issues he was having. Emilia felt her ears burning hotter than the heat of the surrounding smoke and prayed the thick grey fog would be enough to cover it up. She frowned at her body's betrayal, she would not have her Captain thinking there was anything inappropriate going on between her and Ensign Chekov-which there most certainly wasn't. A sudden voice made her jump,

'Alright, zat should do it.'

With a beep, the turbolift doors slid open. Emilia almost cried in relief as she helped her Captain into the blinding white space. The doors slid shut and the extractor fans removed the smoke from the air. Both Emilia and Jim collapsed to the floor coughing and gulping in the fresh oxygen and air that had never tasted so good. Emilia lay on the floor, completely breathless even though she suddenly now had something to breathe. She rolled her head and looked over at Kirk, blowing away a wisp of auburn hair that fell into her face and felt immense relief just seeing him there, safe. She did it. He was alright. Somehow this crazy, never-should-have-happened situation seemed to be turning a corner. Maybe she was getting the hand of this adventure thing. Or maybe not-she had dropped a massive chunk of metal on her Captain, after all. In this light, she could now see the truth of his injury. Just above the top of his boot was a deep slash through the fabric and a wound beneath that was sluggishly leaking. Emilia found herself looking away to try and quench the sudden nausea that had arisen in the back of her throat. When she looked back, her nausea was replaced by a deep fear as she saw that Kirk had gone as white as the walls of the turbolift and his blue eyes had fluttered shut.

'We need to tell ze Keptin about his crew,' Chekov said, just loud enough for Sulu to hear from the Captain's chair. Sulu sighed, he knew that his friend was right. Unfortunately he couldn't bring himself to break such bad news. How could the whole crew just have vanished?

'He's right, Sulu, Jim would want to know,' Uhura said,

'Shall I reopen the line?' Sulu sighed and rubbed a hand across his eyes, squeezing them shut,

'Okay, Lieutenant.' He was just mentally preparing himself when an alarm blared across the Bridge, making his eyes fly open. It was coming from the Captain's vitals, which were still displayed on the screen.

'Goddamnit, Jim!' Doctor McCoy said, stepping closer to the display as if it would bring him closer to Jim. The blood loss levels had reached critical and he was going into shock.

'Get me that Ensign, now!' he said, never taking his eyes off the screen.

'There's no need, she's contacting us'

'Chaser to the Bridge, the Captain just passed out, what do I do?' her voice was bordering on panic, but McCoy had no time to be sympathetic,

'Where's he bleeding from?' he asked, waiting not-so-patiently for his answer.

'His leg- lower leg,' came the response.

'Ok, is he at all responsive?'

'I don't think so, he's…he's just mumbling something about…bones? Why is he talking about bones?' McCoy swallowed past the lump that rose in his throat and stoically ignored her question. He had a job to do, dammit!

'Alright, here's what you need to do.' The whole Bridge had their eyes glued to the display as the Doctor talked the Ensign through the triage of their Captain's injuries, looking quite a lot like he could do with a stress ball. Chekov looked over at Emilia's vitals and saw her elevated heart rate matching the thumping of his own-and everyone else's watching, he was sure.

 **Hey everyone,**

 **I can't thank you enough for all the support I've had for this story, it means the world to me! There's not been a lot of Spock and Scotty so far because I'm sort of stuck on where to take them next so I thought I'd just leave them hanging out somewhere on the Enterprise for a bit… ~Meg**


	8. Turbolift Talk

**A/N Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of updating, I've been in the midst of exam season and couldn't find the motivation for this story. But now it's back! Thank you so much to everyone who reads and especially to those who review, your encouragement is what keeps me going. Hope you enjoy ~ Meg**

All the First Aid and Field Training Emilia had received at the Academy seemed to abandon ship from her brain as

soon as she saw her Captain passed out on the turbolift floor. How her shaking hands had managed to call the

Bridge, she would never know, but the calm and sure words of Doctor McCoy had helped immensely. This was

no Cadet simulation. There was real, actual blood on her hands from the real, actual James T. Kirk who was lying

on the turbolift floor of the real, actual Enterprise. She cursed whoever had designed Starfleet uniforms to be so

short as she ripped the bottom off her skirt to use as a makeshift bandage. If it was bordering on indecent

before, it definitely was now. She felt slightly sick as the gold material slowly turned a sickly red colour. She could

hear an alarm blaring through the communicator and knew it was going off because of Kirk. She tried to focus

on he words of McCoy rather than the urgent and all too often reminder that Kirk was in real trouble.

"Have you done it? C'mon, Ensign, you need to talk to me," McCoy said, waiting not so patiently for his answer.

McCoy was slightly worried by the fact that Emilia sounded like she had a smoker's cough, which meant she

had inhaled a fair amount of smoke. He could see from her vitals onscreen that her oxygen levels were lower

than he would have liked but right now, his focus was on Jim. He could feel the collective holding of breaths from

the crew around him and it really wasn't helping his mood. Emilia's voice crackled through the sound system,

"Ok, I think the bleeding has slowed down but it hasn't stopped."

"I need you to try and get him conscious."

Emilia nodded even though no one could see her and shuffled along the floor slightly so she was next to the

Captain's head. His forehead was creased in worry and he was still murmuring something intelligible and

gasping horribly. Her throat felt raw and impossibly dry so she could only imagine what he must be feeling. Her

hand hovered over him, finding the situation slightly awkward and not really knowing where to touch him. She

rubbed a fist on his sternum, remembering seeing that in a movie before and hoping it was even a little bit

factual. He shifted and frowned even more before his eyes cracked open halfway.

"Captain?" She asked, shaking his shoulder lightly. She could see that he'd heard her but seemed to be fighting

a battle with his eyelids to keep them open. She called out to him louder and more forcefully and he jumped a

little and moved his head to face her. Emilia saw his eyes start to close again,

"Jim!" she practically shouted. That did it. His eyes shot open suddenly. He started to shiver, as if his body had

only just caught up to the fact that he had lost a lot of blood,

"Chaser?" He asked, his face scrunched in confusion. Emilia let out a shaky breath in relief,

"Aye Captain, it's me," she said. She picked up the communicator,

"Doctor McCoy? He's awake," she reported,

"But he's shaking now from the shock and I don't have anything to keep him warm."

"Just keep him awake. Get him talking if you can, God knows he never shuts up once he gets started." Emilia

smiled at the fondness in his tone. Then she frowned, noticing only now that the lift wasn't actually moving, so

they weren't getting any closer to some actual help.

"Why isn't the lift moving?" She asked. There was a brief moment of silence which made Emilia scared she had

lost the connection to the Bridge.

"Damnit, why can't that kid ever catch a break. Don't worry Ensign, we'll get it moving. Tell me if anything

changes with Jim."

"Yes, Sir." She put the communicator on the floor and turned her attentions back to her Captain. Looking down

at him, she was relieved to see he was still awake but she frowned as he smiled a little at her,

"What?" She asked, slightly concerned he was becoming delusional.

"You called me 'Jim'." He rasped out quietly, amidst the shaking. Emilia felt a flicker of panic, she hadn't, had

she? It was very disrespectful to call a senior officer by their first name without permission, _especially_ one that

was in your direct command. The panic must have shown on her face because Jim gave a sort of half laugh, half

cough,

"Don't look so worried, all the 'Captain' and 'Sir' was getting a bit much in this sort of situation. I mean, maybe

'Jim' isn't quite enough, but I wouldn't mind just 'Kirk'." Looking into those unbelievably blue eyes, Emilia saw

again the youthfulness to him that betrayed his usual authority. She opened her mouth the answer him, but he

cut her off with his wheezy voice before she could,

"So Chekov, huh?" How he found the energy to raise his suggestive eyebrow after being in shock not five

minutes before, Emilia would never know. She wished she could ignore him but 1. He was her Captain and 2.

She had been instructed to keep him talking,

"What about him?"

"I think you two are cute together."

Emilia had to turn away from him to hide the fact she knew she had just turned engineering red,

"Captain, I-"

"Don't deny it, Chaser, I see the way you look at each other. Y'know, I do have the best seat on the Bridge."

Emilia knew he was teasing her and chose her words carefully,

"Even if there was something between us, _which there isn't_ , it wouldn't be...proper to have that sort of thing

happening on the Bridge." Emilia jumped as Jim practically snorted,

"You're kidding me, right? You know Spock and Uhura have a thing going on?" Emilia almost did a double take,

"What? I mean- what?"

"Of course, if you thought it would cause a problem for you and Chekov to work together and _be_ together, I

could always transfer one of you off the Bridge. Although Chekov is one of my senior officers so it couldn't really

be him so-"

"Please don't transfer me off the Bridge," Emilia interrupted, her panic at the thought meaning she failed to

notice the amused smirk being sent her way. Kirk quickly schooled his features to pure innocence when she

looked his way again,

"You wouldn't want to give up your position for a chance to be with Mr Chekov?"

"No. Working on the Bridge of the Enterprise is all I've ever wanted."

"Good. If you'd have been willing to give that up for the sake of a possible romantic attachment, I probably would

have punched you." Emilia then realised he'd been messing with her and just stared at him. Then she heard a

thud that didn't come from inside the lift and felt briefly like she had actually been punched in the stomach. The

communicator was still on.

Chekov's ears were burning furiously as he reached down to pick up his PADD off the floor where he had just

dropped it. He stared straight ahead at his console, tapping as fast as was humanly possible. He forced himself

to focus on getting the turbolift moving and stoically ignored the fact that everyone on the Bridge had just heard

that whole thing.


	9. Captain on the Bridge

Scotty sighed. Spock was doing that thing again, the one where he just sits there with his legs crossed and his eyes closed, looking for all the world like he was sitting on his bedroom floor rather than the tin can they were currently locked in. Scotty had never been one for meditation or yoga or any of that stuff but he sort of wished he was now, if only for something to do. Scotty sighed louder. One slanted eyebrow twitched and Scotty counted that as a win. It wasn't that he didn't love his ship, he just didn't particularly love the cargo bays, especially not the ones that held empty shipment containers from the delivery last week that could be conveniently used as an impromptu prison. He was still trying to wrap his head round how these intruders, whoever they are, had managed to get aboard the Enterprise and sabotage the warp core-his warp core- all without tripping a single alarm. In fact, the first he'd known of it, his beloved ship was malfunctioning and then he'd woken up in this metal box. Scotty had tried to keep the conversation flowing with Spock once they'd exhausted all their plans of escape but it turns out there's only so much small talk a Vulcan can take. He cleared his throat,

"You had any bright ideas, Mr Spock?" He asked hopefully. The Vulcan finally opened both his eyes,

"If you mean to say, have I determined a method of escape, I'm afraid I must disappoint you, Mr Scott."

"Aye, I figured as much." Scotty was not left to his disappointment for long. There was the telltale sound of a lock being undone and then the creak and rattle of the metal door opening. The Commander and the Engineer both shot to their feet, putting themselves closer to the level of their captors. Spock had never seen them, only heard one, and as much as he didn't want to come face to face with them, he would be lying if he said his curiosity wasn't rising. Two huge murky green eyes came into sight and he blinked in surprise. He didn't recognise the species. He had read hundreds of books detailing the different species of the universe and yet he couldn't place this one. A second creature, slightly shorter than the first followed into the container. A sound that may or may not have been a laugh slithered from the first creatures' mouth,

"I never tire of that look when I am seen," it said. It's Standard was a little broken and sounded out of place in its mouth.

"I have not encountered a member of your species before," was all Spock could say in reply to the odd statement.

The creature came forward until he stood toe to toe with Spock. To his credit, Spock did not step back although every part of him screamed it was logical to do so. The creature stooped to find eye level with Spock and hissed in his ear,

"We are Lokthan." A chill ran down Spock's spine.

"What's your business in keeping us here? We're on our own ship, we will be found!" Scotty promised, taking a step towards the Lokthan.

"Your crew are gone. All that remain are those in command and only because I need them." Scotty faltered. The Lokthan turned back to Spock, seemingly satisfied with the engineer's response,

"I asked your crew to deliver me something and they have not,"

"Of course they haven't! You dinnae think they'd be making deals with the likes of you!?" Scotty shrank back at the utter outrage in the eyes that snapped his way. The hulking Lokthan slid towards him, his (?) steps not making any sound as if he were gliding across the floor. Scotty's back hit the wall and a calloused claw advanced towards his unprotected throat. The Chief Engineer moved to block the attack but found he was nowhere near strong enough. His breath was taken away, not only by the cutting off of his air supply, but by the icy chill of the Lokthan's skin. Spock moved, one hand raised for a Vulcan nerve pinch even though he wasn't sure he could reach the height of a stooped Lokthan shoulder. His advance was halted as quickly as it began by the companion of the Lokthan that seemed to be in command. Spock's usually impassive mask slipped as pain shot through his wrist, clasped in a bone crushing grip. He let out a strangled gasp as he felt it fracture. Scotty desperately tried to prise away the hands round his throat but he was losing strength with each passing moment as black spots danced in front of his eyes, obscuring the Lokthan face before him. All at once, the Scotsman and the Vulcan were released. Scotty crumpled to the floor, dragging air in through his abused windpipe as Spock fell to his knees and curled around his broken wrist, taking in ragged gasps as he tried to control his pain.

"Your crew have one hour to give me what I want. After that, I'm done with you," the Lokthan sneered. The two creatures slid out of the container and the door locked with an ominous echo.

Chekov was miserable. His head hurt underneath his bandage, Spock and Scotty were missing, the Captain was bleeding out in a lift and he was more embarrassed than he had been in a long time. Luckily, it seemed the Bridge crew had more important things to do at the moment than make fun of his love life so for now he was just trying to blend into his console and actually do his job.

"Lieutenant Uhura, have you been able to locate Scotty or Spock?" asked acting Captain Sulu. Uhura turned away from her station to face him,

"I'm having to search the ship manually, so it's taking some time. I've managed to narrow it down to the cargo deck." Sulu nodded and she turned back to her work. He was itching to run and help them but he knew that with the lift out of action and the disappearance of the last search and rescue team, it wasn't likely to result in anything better than his own death. They could also definitely not hand over Jim to these intruders. Whether or not they had Spock, sacrificing the Captain was not an option.

"I've got it!" Chekov declared. Sulu jumped at the noise; Chekov hadn't said, well, anything for a good ten minutes which was entirely too long for him. There was a tense five seconds when the only sound was the slight hum of the turbolift before the doors finally slid open. Doctor McCoy nearly fell into the lift, having been standing so close to the doors. There was a collective sigh of relief that the Captain was back on the Bridge.


	10. Great Escape

Never had James Tiberius Kirk been so glad to see the grumpy doctor waving a hypo around. Usually, that sort of scenario ended in Bones chasing him through the corridors in a very un-Captain like way but for now, he would gladly accept anything that would cut through this haze of blood loss and smoke inhalation and general _not good_ feeling.

He felt a slight weight settle on his chest and had the bizarre thought that this is what it would feel like for a tribble to sit on you. He craned his neck to see and found that it was in fact not a tribble, but Bones, quietly reassuring himself that Jim was still breathing and his heart was still beating- _you ain't dying on my watch, kid._ Jim had never liked being flat on his back and he suddenly became very aware of it. He started moving as if to sit up and Bones, to his credit, didn't simply push him back down as another doctor might have. Bones knew exactly how he was feeling. Bones always knew, and so he found himself being gently raised to lie propped up on someone's lap. He blinked groggily up at the swirling mass of gold and black being used as his makeshift pillow and discerned that mass to be none other than his very own pilot.

'Who's flying my ship, Mr Sulu?' he asked, rather drunkenly.

'Don't worry, Sir, everything is under control' came the reply. _Slap_. Jim's eyes flew open- _when had he closed them?_ \- and he stared at his CMO with a look of childish hurt,

'You keep them baby blues open, ya here me James Tiberius?' James. Nobody called him James except Admiral Pike…was he here?

'Yes, Sir.'

'Not Sir, Jim, just me.'

Emilia felt almost dizzy with relief when she saw an actual qualified Doctor swoop into the lift and start to effectively treat the Captain. After a few minutes of emergency triage on Kirk's leg, said Doctor glanced at her with searching eyes, as if only just remembering she was there,

'You alright, kid?' Emilia nodded wearily, exhaustion replacing adrenaline in her system. Seemingly unconvinced, McCoy waved a tricorder in her vague direction and looked down as it beeped,

'Just a bit low on oxygen and a little bit shocky.' He said, then turned towards the many staring eyes of the Bridge crew and called out to no one in particular,

'Can someone find me a blanket?' Looking down at Kirk, he added,

'Make that two blankets.'

About half an hour later and many hypos later, the Captain was back in his rightful chair. Even though he was wrapped in an emergency blanket, his leg was covered in thick white bandages and he looked a slight shade greyer than usual, he was still right where he belonged. Doctor McCoy hovered by his side as a blue shirted, eagle eyed shadow, poised and ready should Jim decide to indulge his dramatic streak and faint or something. Emilia sat near the science station in a chair someone had pulled up from the ready room just off the Bridge. Now that her Captain seemed relatively safe, her thoughts wondered back to Commander Spock, who she had not seen since he disappeared around the other side of the warp core what seemed like weeks ago. In reality, it had only been this morning. It had taken less than a day for her lifelong dream to become a nightmare-ish reality.

'Chaser?' A loud-albeit somewhat croaky- voice startled her from her thoughts and she snapped to attention out of habit.

'At ease, Ensign, I was just checking you were alright?' Emilia relaxed slightly and offered a weak smile to the Captain that didn't quite reach her eyes,

'Aye, Sir, just…thinking.' Jim nodded.

'You let me know if that changes,' said McCoy, from his position by Jim's shoulder. Emilia turned her not-quite-a-smile to the Doctor, who seemed fairly unconvinced, but let her think she'd fooled him anyway. Looking back to Kirk, who had turned back to face the Bridge, Emilia could see the slight straitening of his shoulders, the deep breath he drew in as he switched into 'Captain mode'.

'First things first, we need to get the crew to safety.' Kirk paused. He had clearly felt something in the mood change, as Emilia had. Glancing around, Emilia could see that everyone present looked, suddenly, distinctly uncomfortable. Chekov looked as if he wanted to the bolt for the door and Emilia was momentarily concerned that he might.

'What's going on?' Nobody said anything.

'Oh for- do I have to order it out of you? Someone tell me right now.' Sulu cleared his throat and swallowed thickly,

'They're gone, Sir, we aren't reading any life signs across the ship.' Emilia felt her heart drop like a stone, the crew were gone? All of them?

Jim felt sick. Well, more sick than he had been feeling already. As he saw it, his primary role was to protect the ship and her crew at all costs. So far, there was a huge crater in his ship and only about 20 crew members actually on board.

'The Lokthan seem to have just beamed them all out, but we don't know how or where to,' Uhura reported quietly. That caught his attention,

'The who?' he asked, to no one in particular,

'I've never heard of a race called Lok…Lok-whatever.'

'Well they've heard of you, Jim,' Bones said,

'Said they wanted you for something you did to them.' Jim frowned,

'I haven't done anything to…' Jim was cut off by an intense wave of pain screaming through his head. He cried out and then his vision faded to a chorus of panicked Bridge crew.

As much as he was trying to hide it, Scotty could tell that Spock was in pain-like, a lot of pain. The impassive mask had slid back into place but there were tell-tale signs of discomfort all over. The slight pinch in his forehead, the ghost of hurt in his eyes…and the fact he was stoically _not looking_ at his wrist which was held tightly to his chest. Scotty didn't blame him, the bones were clearly not quite where they should be and the dark, blooming bruising didn't exactly paint a pretty picture across the pale Vulcan skin. Just looking at the injury made a surge of rage bubble up inside the Chief Engineer and he let out a noise of disgust,

'Right, I'm done with this! I cannae just sit here like a damn tribble waiting for those great beasts to come slithering back!' Scotty's rant came out sounding decidedly less threatening coming from his abused windpipe.

'I have hypothesised a method of escape, Mr Scott, however it will require your expertise to carry out,' Spock said by way of response to the slight outburst, his voice just a little softer than usual.

'Brilliant! Go ahead then, Mr Spock.'

'It will require your Starfleet badge. I would deface my own uniform, were it not for my current injury.' Scotty nodded, then ripped his badge from his uniform without hesitation-he could always replicate another. Spock talked Scotty through the basic logic of his idea, based on an old fashioned lockpick. Scotty felt around in the lock with the tip of the badge until he felt the metal give. The door clunked and the lock slid open,

'Aha! Got it!'

'It would seem the Lokthan did not realise that this was not a perfect prison,' Spock mused.

'Aye, they don't know my ship like I do.' Spock's eyebrow twitched fractionally.

Scotty put a hand on the metal door and began to ease it open, conscious of the squealing hinges. If the Lokthan came now, it would be game over…and they'd probably be dead. No hulking shadows detached themselves from the dark corners of the cargo bay outside, no icy voice cut through the heavy silence. The Engineer and the First Officer stole away silently across the polished floors, the harsh smell of smouldering metal weaving its way into their lungs from the wrecked cooling system, just a few floors away.


	11. Memory

Jim came round half sprawled across the arm of his chair with a very concerned Doctor chattering in his ear. As it turned out, it took only five quiet words for the

mother-henning to abruptly stop,

'I know who they are.'

A silence hung over the Bridge, a stark contrast to the clamour of a few minutes ago. Sweeping his gaze around the room, Jim saw everyone not even trying to

pretend they weren't staring at him.

'What do you mean, kid?' Bones asked softly, in the sort of voice that made it easy to imagine him as a father,

'You said a minute ago you'd never heard of them.' A sudden beeping made the crew collectively jump as contact was made with the Bridge. Uhura flipped some

switches and connected the line.

'Commander Spock to the Bridge.'

Uhura half choked on the breath she took in. Emilia let herself feel some relief- Spock was alive,

'Bridge, are you receiving me?'

Jim pressed a button on the Captain's chair,

'Spock, it's Jim,' he rasped.

The Commander's breathing sounded harsher than usually and slightly pained. Whatever injury he had sustained had to be severe for him to be showing signs of

pain. Doctor McCoy, of course, picked up on the subtle change,

'Spock, what's going on, are you hurt?'

'Doctor, I assure you it is nothing to concern yourself with presently.'

McCoy rolled his eyes and let out a string of choice words under his breath,

'Mr Chekov, get me his vitals.'

'Aye, Sir' Chekov tapped briefly on his console and a display flashed up. You could almost see the headache growing between McCoy's eyes. Just as he opened his

mouth to share some of the aforementioned choice words with the Vulcan, he was interrupted.

'I have had direct contact with the intruders and…I do not recognise the species.' Emilia felt a strange pit open up in her stomach. At the Academy, it was a well-

known fact that Commander Spock was basically a walking Encyclopaedia on all the known species of the Universe. An attack by an unknown species was always

worse-there was no way to predict their next move.

'Spock, tell me what your injuries are right now or I'm gonna kick your hobgoblin ass.' There was brief beat of silence when Emilia wasn't sure if Spock was going to

be stubborn or concede to the Doctor.

'The scaphoid bone in my right wrist is fractured.' He finally confessed. Uhura looked as if she wanted to let a few tears out but was fighting to keep them in. Chekov

said something quietly in Russian. It was Spock himself that spoke again,

'I assure you, I am fine. It is illogical to be concerned for my wellbeing.' There was the faint sound of another voice through the communicator.

'Spock, who's with you?' Jim said, a heart wrenching hopeful look on his face. There was a horrible beat of tension before a hoarse voice crackled over the line,

'It's Scotty, Captain.' Jim seemed to sink into his chair in relief. Apparently unaware of the emotions on the Bridge, Spock pushed on,

'The Starfleet Database will contain any known information about the Lokthan, if we can-'

'Jim knows who they are.' Bones announced, cutting him off. Whilst Bones had looked the expected level of shocked at this revelation, Emilia imagined that Spock's

face remained impassive but perhaps with the slight raising of one slanted eyebrow. Bones turned back to Jim,

'C'mon Jim, talk to me. What do you mean? You told me earlier you didn't know them, Spock doesn't even recognise the species and now suddenly, you know who

they are?'

'I have a…sort of a memory of them. Like I've met them before but can't remember where.' Jim didn't say anything else for a few long moments.

'You wanna elaborate on that?' Jim's face scrunched up (and Bones inwardly cringed at how young it made him look) and he shook his head,

'Well it's not so much a memory…well, it wasn't my memory at least. More of an impression? I don't even know what I'm trying to say.' Bones frowned,

'You sure you don't have a concussion?' Jim swatted away the tricorder that was waved near his head in annoyance,

"I mean, when I did the weird mind connection thing with old Spock, I saw stuff that happened in the other universe, to the other me.' Emilia grasped what was going

on a little slower than she would have liked-Spock knows all the species in the Universe- _this Universe_. The Lokthan must be from a different one-one she was glad

she wasn't a part of. Bones' eyes went comically wide,

'That can't be healthy to have memories of a life you never even lived? Hell, how is that even possible?' Spock chose this moment to contribute to the conversation,

as the resident expert on such matters,

'It is entirely possible, Doctor, just not highly probable. From what I have heard of the mind meld that occurred between the Captain and Ambassador Spock, it was

not entirely consensual and therefore the Captain was not adequately prepared. As such, some…leakage of memories may have occurred.' McCoy rolled his eyes,

'Leakage'. Ain't that just what you want… ' As usual, the Vulcan entirely missed the sarcasm, or perhaps just ignored it

'Indeed, Doctor, had this 'leakage' not occurred, we would not have the information we now do- information that may help us against the Lokthan.'


End file.
